


Fairest in the Land

by writingramblr



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies), Snow White - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Snow White and the Huntsman Fusion, Angst, Fairy Tale Style, Ficlet, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Inspired By Tumblr, M/M, One Shot, Prompt Fic, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-19
Updated: 2017-01-19
Packaged: 2018-09-18 12:43:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9385691
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writingramblr/pseuds/writingramblr
Summary: Graves was the only one who would dare brave the dark forest, and he knew it. He was the most favored of the queen’s knights and the order to retrieve the heart of the boy didn’t give him pause.He was just a child; he would be caught and killed easily enough. Graves tried not to think about how things would have been if the queen had not lost her husband so long ago and turned into the worst sort of ruler the country had ever known.Even the ground was cursed from it.





	

**Author's Note:**

> so heres this  
> idk

 

* * *

 

 

He saw his chance and he took it. He ran.

And ran.

His hands shook and his legs threatened to give out, but then he was standing on a cliff, and he had to jump. To swim.

He’d stabbed him.

The queen’s brother Gellert.

He’d stabbed the man in the shoulder, before he could lean in any closer and breathe the smell of death and despair or feel the rough hands he knew had killed many people before him.

Praying had done him no good, not for ten years.

He swam until he could no more, and it was like the sea pushed him away.

The water was so cold, and the beach rough, it woke him as he landed.

He sat up and tried to keep from wincing at the rising sun. It had been so long since he’d been outside the stone walls of the castle.

“Hello.”

There was a white horse standing by a giant rock, and he couldn’t help walking towards it. He could feel it was magical, but good, it would not hurt him.

The horse nickered gently and then leaned down to allow him to climb on its back.

Credence could scarcely believe it.

He wouldn’t have to walk everywhere anymore.

Getting to the nearest kingdom might take days.

He was determined to do so.

*

Graves was the only one who would dare brave the dark forest, and he knew it. He was the most favored of the queen’s knights and the order to retrieve the heart of the boy didn’t give him pause.

He was just a child; he would be caught and killed easily enough. Graves tried not to think about how things would have been if the queen had not lost her husband so long ago and turned into the worst sort of ruler the country had ever known.

Even the ground was cursed from it.

The sun didn’t burn warmly, it was harsh.

Trees wilted and died, and the dark forest was starting to be less unique.

Still, Graves pressed on, knife drawn, at the ready.

He knew the boy would be snared in the forest, and it was a matter of time.

When the only light came from the sliver of the moon in the sky, Graves had to admit to himself, perhaps if the boy had help, he could make it a little farther.

Sleeping wasn’t an option, so he merely pressed on, and walked until his feet felt like they would fall off.

By the time the sun emerged again, bathing the forest in a grayish light, Graves had come upon the most dangerous part of the foliage.

Stepping in the wrong place would yield pollen that while not poisonous, could lead to death at one’s own hand.

He stopped short when he saw a few black leaves scattered unnaturally, as if they’d been trampled on by a large animal, and he held his breath, moving around it as fast as possible.

_“HELP! PLEASE!”_

*

Credence couldn’t understand what had happened, but his horse had left him, after a black cloud swallowed him up, rising from the ground to throw him off, landing on the ground upon a pile of slithering black snakes.

He couldn’t feel the sting of their fangs, but when he opened his eyes there was a tree itself leering towards him, red eyes glowing from inside a hollow, containing which he didn’t know.

He screamed, and struggled against the snakes that seemed to be holding him down.

Just when he’d resigned himself to die, in the heart of the dark forest, as so many had, there was something moving in the distance, and then barreling towards him, and he felt strong arms throw him over a shoulder, driving the breath from his lungs.

“Hold on.”

The voice was rough and curt, and tinged with anger.

Credence did as he was told, watching as the snakes moved, shifting after him, but the person carrying him walked with determination and speed almost unmatched by anything but a horse.

It wasn’t until there was a break in the darkness, and true sunshine was burning into the back of his neck that he felt the strong arms on him again, pulling him back and then setting him on his feet.

He backed up until he hit another tree, a normal tree, and gasped.

“Who are you?”

The man had a beard that was brown and streaked with silver, wild heavy brows, and a coat that looked as if he’d rolled around in dirt, but it might have been tan at one time.

Credence’s eyes locked on the sharp knife in the man’s right hand, and his eyes widened in fear.

“Could ask you the same, but I think I know you’re the missing prince.”

Credence’s heartbeat was pounding in his ears, and he held up his hands,

“Please, don’t hurt me. I just wanted to live. I was more prisoner than prince. I don’t want the throne. I don’t want anything but to be free.”

He dropped his eyes to the ground, and couldn’t bear to look anymore. If the man wanted to kill him, he could not hope to fight him off.

He was weakened from slow starvation and lack of sunlight and exertion.

“You really are the prince? You’re Credence? But the prince is a child… a boy.”

*

Graves can’t believe his eyes.

The creature before him, the cry for help he’d followed without knowing why, was the vessel of the heart the queen wanted?

He’d heard the stories, and he thought he knew what he was expecting. A child with hair dark as night, skin white as snow, and well, lips red as blood.

But instead, there was a young man cowering at his feet, looking nothing like a former prince or a child, and he shivered like he was freezing.

He might be.

He only wore a slate colored shift over black pants, and his shoes were gone. Or he’d never had any.

He couldn’t walk far like that.

“I am. The queen tells people I’m younger because she wishes to think I cannot rule. She wishes to feed from my youth, but couldn’t, because I am her child by marriage, she cannot hurt me. Magic is tricky, so they say.”

He dropped to his knees, and sheathed the knife away, to extend a hand,

“I do not harm innocents. I don’t care if my queen orders it. I know your father would never have done such a thing. He was a good man.”

The young man, Credence, lifts his head and lowers a hand, allowing Graves to help him up, and he could feel the slender wrist trembling in his hold.

“You would defy her?”

Graves became trapped in the dark liquid eyes of the prince, and swallowed as he felt something deep inside his chest bloom to life. Something that had been dead for many years.

“For you, your highness, anything.”

“But I don’t _want_ the throne… you don’t need to address me as such.”

Graves would have gladly argued the point, but there was a snap of a twig, and he looked around to find them surrounded by seven deadly looking dwarves.

“Oh shit.”

*

Credence merely spoke to the leader of the band of dwarves, and asked if they could direct them to the Goldstein’s castle, and they instantly changed their attitudes, hearing who he was and where he’d come from.

The man with the knife, also known as the Huntsman, Graves, so he’d said, at the point of the sword of a dwarf, had decided to help, instead of trying to kill him.

Credence was grateful for that, but very concerned as to what would happen when the man didn’t return with his heart for the queen.

“Does it matter? Once you get to the Goldstein’s, you’ll be safe.”

“You think they’ll help me? Hide me?”

Graves nodded, and Credence felt a bit better.

The dwarves escorted them through the enchanted forest, an opposing and beautiful place to the dark forest. A place where deer with magnificent antlers walked around solemnly and silent, and there were small blue butterflies that carried fairies from tree to tree.

Credence found himself walking towards the second deer he saw, and to his astonishment, it let him, like the white horse, it didn’t shy away from his touch.

It welcomed it, leaning against his palm, its eyes falling shut and Credence gasped.

“He is the chosen one. The one to bring us from the edge of despair to hope again.”

Dimly, Credence realized the dwarf had been talking about him, and when he pulled away from the deer to look to the group, his gaze caught on Graves.

The man was staring at him, and Credence could not meet it for long, without feeling warmth bleed into his cheeks.

He wasn’t sure what it was about the man, but something about him simply made him feel out of harm's way despite the fact he might have originally been running from people like him.

But the man had saved his life.

He couldn’t forget that.

*

More than a snag.

More than a horrible twist of fate.

They were a day from the Goldstein’s castle when they encountered someone who seemed like Princess Tina, and Graves had been relieved when Credence knew her at once by sight, and almost ran to her.

It only made his stomach clench slightly with jealousy, seeing such fondness displayed by the prince.

But it meant nothing; they were old friends, so of course.

That night, everything had gone wrong.

Credence had taken a walk with Tina away from the fire, where the dwarves had all passed out from copious amounts of rum and whiskey exchanged, Graves had declined.

He’d followed them at a distance, and witnessed a shocking sight.

Credence hadn’t even been paying attention, but Tina approached him suddenly and took his hand, bringing it to her lips, kissing his knuckles and causing him to shy away, but she didn’t let him, she tugged him closer, so that he almost crashed into her.

She was kissing him.

Graves felt like the ground had fallen out from beneath him.

Until he heard something terrible.

Tina was cackling, and moving away from Credence, watching confidently as the prince crumpled to the ground, and Graves was already running for them.

“What happened?”

“Oh you poor simple fool. Can’t even do one thing right. Don’t worry, I won’t hurt you. You’ll be killed if you try to return to the kingdom though, call it a favor for services rendered.”

Graves froze, and watched as Tina’s dark hair and tanned skin morphed into white blonde hair and lighter skin, gaining a couple inches in height, and before she turned into a murder of crows, he saw the hint of a smile on her face.

The queen had followed him.

All that time, he’d been leading the prince to danger anyway.

He couldn’t even think of anything to say before she had gone, and he was turning, facing the prince, praying as he fell to his knees beside him that the prince was still alive.

To his relief, he felt a faint shudder of a pulse below the prince’s skin of his wrist.

But the dwarves did not have good news for him.

“It’s poison. It will surely kill him. This is dark magic. There is no cure.”

Graves couldn’t stop himself from grabbing the nearest one and lifting him right off his feet, shaking him a bit harder than necessary,

“Don’t say that! You can’t know that! Don’t you have mages for this? Do the Goldstein’s know a warlock or a witch?”

They didn’t know.

A day away still.

The prince didn’t have that long, he was looking paler and paler by the moment, and Graves could feel how icy his skin had become.

Somehow, miraculously, the prince had a faint pulse even as the spires of the castle came into view, after traveling all night, and Graves thought perhaps, maybe all hope was not lost.

But it turned out, it was.

The Goldstein Sisters had no magical companions or mages employed, and they could only stare, heartbroken at Graves, who’d taken to carrying the prince, lest he become jolted off a horses back.

“I don’t know what to tell you Sir Graves. I am deeply sorry for this tragedy that has befallen you. We only knew Credence for a few years before his father died, before his mother cut off all contact and refused to accept our ambassadors.”

He was tired of looking at sad faces with no answers, so he left.

He followed instructions for his guest room, but diverted to the first room he saw that he suspected was more suited for the prince, a room that was blinding in its decorations of white silk and ivory furnishings. Gentle, so gently, he moved to set the prince down atop the bed, placed oddly in the center of the room.

“I’m so sorry I couldn’t protect you, I only delayed your death. I can never redeem myself, but I had hoped, if you had given me the chance, I would have proved myself worthy of a second chance.”

Graves fell to his knees beside the bed, bringing his hands together, lacing his fingers and pressing them to his forehead until it hurt.

“Please, if there is anyone who can help, I will do anything to save him.”

Silence reigned, and Graves sighed after a few moments, before setting a hand to the wrist nearest him, feeling the prince’s pulse skittering almost to a stop.

He got to his feet, and blinked, feeling the hot tears sting and drop to the ground, just narrowly missing his boots.

“Forgive me.”

It was desperate, probably useless, but Graves couldn’t just watch him die as he was, angelic, untouched, and with those red lips calling out to him.

*

Credence had been trapped inside his own mind, screaming and clawing at invisible walls, unable to do or say anything to have any effect on what was happening to him.

His lungs felt strained and constricted, and it wasn’t until he realized that Graves was bending over to press his mouth to his own, that he drew a full breath, and his eyes opened.

He put a hand up and grasped the man’s shoulder, and Graves’ eyes widened.

“Oh my god, you’re awake.”

He tried to pull away, but Credence wouldn’t let go of him.

“Please don’t leave me.”

Graves halted, and then nodded, shifting back closer.

“Did you… hear anything I said before, were you awake?”

Credence felt heat bloom in his cheeks.

“Yes. Did you mean it?”

Graves bit his lip and nodded.

A moment later the man had pulled him up to sit, with his strong arms wrapped around his back, holding him so close Credence could count every eyelash and freckle on the man’s face.

“You carried me this whole way too. You didn’t want to set me down.”

“Not for a minute. I didn’t know how many dwarves it would take to carry you.”

Graves looked like he wanted to laugh, but Credence was just focused on him, lost as he was drinking in the sight of the man’s face, as it had been only a day since he’d been able to _see_ but he’d hated every second of it.

Credence lifted a hand to cup the man’s face, feeling the roughness of his beard against his palm, and the man’s eyes closed, as he leaned into the touch, like the magical deer had.

“If I can stay here, will you stay as my knight?”

Graves nodded,

“I would be honored to do that for you, my prince.”

Credence smiled, and then leaned in, whispering just before their lips met,

“Just call me Credence, please.”

*

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> and they lived happily ever after and banged a lot. i am banged out for today yall.


End file.
